Large differences across the country in spending for the care of similar patients could indicate a healthcare system that is not as efficient as it could be, particularly if that higher spending does not produce commensurately better care or improved health outcomes, concluded a newly released paper by the Congressional Budget Office.
Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending examines the amount of and trends in geographic variation in the nation’s healthcare spending, as well as the root causes of that variation. It also examines the relationship between spending and quality of care, and discusses what those findings imply about how health care is produced in the United States and how it could be made more efficient. The paper focuses primarily on spending in the Medicare program because there are more data available about the cost of providing health care to Medicare beneficiaries than there are for other populations.
Among other findings, the paper says that some of the variation in medical practice probably is attributable to regional differences in the supply of medical resources (specialist physicians or healthcare facilities, for example) and the propensity to take advantage of the financial incentives provided by Medicare or other payers in developing and using those resources. Download the report.
